Researchers to spin spider silk from goat milk
For a long time there has been interest in producing spider silk fibres because of their strength and elasticity. However, the University of Wyoming is now looking at ways of producing the synthetic fibre from goat milk.
With help from the National Science Foundation (NSF), Randy Lewis, professor of molecular biology at the university and his team have figured out a way of putting the spider's silk-making genes into goats.
"What we've done is we've actually cloned the genes for the protein that makes up every one of the spider silks. They make six different kinds of silk and a kind of glue. We know, in particular, [there is] a silk called dragline silk that they use to make the framework of a web, that's the one that most people are interested in," Mr Lewis explains. "When the goats have kids, and they start lactating, we collect the milk, and we can purify that spider silk protein in much, much higher quantities."
The research involves three sets of twins and one single goat. “We've done the blood tests on them, so we know that three of them do have the silk gene, and four of them do not. There are only so many copies of the gene, so it's like any other genetic factor; a certain percentage is going to get it, and some of them aren't," he explains. So far, he says he has not seen any differences in the health, appearance or behaviour of the goats that have the genes compared with those that do not.
